I recently came across a company called Creative Home Engineering that has a website for creating secret rooms in your house. Personally I like the pool table coming up out of the middle of the room animation.

All joking aside I can see a technological application for this. In the hidden room is all the servers and electronic backbones for a smart house. It gives you access to the room using a keypad. That way its not completely obvious to the casual visitor where the computer(s) running the house are located.

Check out the website

Recently Apple has been sued because iPods can go up to 120 decibles (dbA).Sometimes I think that people are just looking for a high profile case to attach their name to. The lawsuit being filed by John Kiel Patterson contends Apple’s iPod is "inherently defective" in its design and can contribute to hearing loss. Steve W. Berman, an attorney for Patterson, was quoted as saying "Patterson does not know if the device has damaged his hearing. But that's beside the point of the lawsuit, which takes issue with the potential the iPod has to cause irreparable hearing loss"

It has the POTENTIAL to cause hearing loss. Well let me get the facts right.. since the iPod has the technical ability to go up to 120 dbA they should be sued. Okay well how about sueing babies all over the world. The average baby's cry is at 110 dbA. Since its Super Bowl weekend, we should sue them. The average noise in a football stadium is 117 dbA.

According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, the maximum exposure time at 85 dBA is 8 hours. At 110 dBA, the maximum exposure time is one minute and 29 seconds.

So by those standards we can only attend 1 minute & 29 seconds of the Super Bowl per day.

Read more about the lawsuit

Read More about noise levels

Read More about earbuds

Read More about idiots from Lousiana

Here endeth the lesson

Apple has launched a new service called iTunes U that provides a way for colleges and universities to make both audio and video content from lectures, interviews, audio books and more available to students online. Students can download the content to their Macs or PCs, and transfer it to their iPods as well.

This is such a great idea!

I would have loved to been able to download the lecture for my Bio 102 class.

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Rumors are persisting that Microsoft is going to enter the market of digital media players. However does Microsoft think it can compare to Apple's market share? I think Microsoft would do better to push portable devices like hybrid PDAs and cellphones that would allow streaming content from media providers. Sure being able to play your favorite tunes would be a function, but what about features like watching the most recent episode of 24?

Apple is moving in this direction with its partnerships with Disney / ABC and with Steve Jobs now a chairman of the board at Disney, most analysts can only see the licensing agreement between the two companies to increase.

Of course what this could mean is that you will only be able to view certain programs on various handhelds. This could be a potential downfall. The "networks" would do well to allow downloads of programs to whatever device no matter who manufactured it, but rather through a service similar to cable tv. Afterall I don't have to have multiple cable boxes to view different networks. Why should I have multiple software/hardware to do so on a portable machine.


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I've decided that I should probably get off
my political soapbox.

Recently Nikon has announced that it will be
steamlining its 35mm camera sales in response
to the ever-growing digital camera market.

"The measures that Nikon will adopt include
discontinuing production of all large format
Nikkor lenses and enlarging lenses, as well
as several of our film camera bodies, manual
focus Nikkor interchangeable lenses and related
accessories." Nikon

Now while I'm all for the camera industry
embracing digital mediums further, I think that
discontinuing the Nikkor lenses is probably
a mistake.

It seems to me that this is a move similar
to Eastman Kodak's downsizing last year
due to changes in the market.

More and more people are purchasing digital
cameras and printing them out on their own
printers, rather than having them developed.
I can't really blame either company for trying
to be more financially viable.